Australian Grasses and Pasture Plants 



INTRODUCTORY 



Australian grasses attracted much attention from the 

 discoverers and the earliest settlers on the land, and different 

 views were entertained regarding their economic importance. 

 Sir Joseph Banks, to whom Australia is so much indebted for 

 its early settlement, and for the development of its vegetable 

 resources, remarked in one of his reports : ' ' The herbage 

 of the colony is by no means so well adapted to sheep-farming 

 as that of Europe, and, therefore, the progress of the flocks 

 will be slow." This opinion, however, was soon contro- 

 verted, for Captain Waterhouse, writing to Captain Macarthur 

 (two pioneers in the pastoral industry) in the early part of 

 the last century, mentioned that he had kept sheep, and found 

 them do well on the natural pasturage, and he believed that 

 good pasturage would be found for any number of sheep that 

 might be raised. He therefore ridiculed the idea of the 

 necessity of introducing exotic grasses. The opinions enter- 

 tained by Captain Waterhouse, more than one hundred years 

 ago, have been amply verified by subsequent experience. 

 Australian explorers always took great interest in the indig- 

 enous grasses which, when abundant, relieved them of much 

 anxiety in providing good feed for their horses and for the 

 stock that travelled with them. Sir Thomas Mitchell, 

 exploring in the interior, collected specimens of grasses, 

 and afterwards wrote an interesting account of the manner 

 in which the aborigines gathered the "Australian Millet" 

 (Panicum decompositum) the seeds of which formed for them 



